Identity Politics and The Language Controversy

This Saturday's post has been problematic. My brain has been terribly "sticky" on a proposal I'm writing for a conference presentation, and tearing my brain away to even read a news story let alone write about it has failed some uncountable number of times. And not only has my brain been sticky on the topic of the proposal (communication strategies for self-advocates who use uncommon or minority communication methods, e.g. sign language or speech devices) but my brain's been sticky on identity politics and language, and who gets to decide what a person can call themselves, because the proposal requires I use language that not only I find offensive but would anger my immediate community and indeed big chunks of my presentation audience. So I bite back my feelings and carefully choose words that offend neither the selection committee nor my community, even if that means having to write some terribly awkward phrases.

The Language Controversy (i.e. do we say "Disabled person" or "person with a disability") is a really important topic, but also, in my opinion, a disproportionately hot topic that can cause more unproductive contention and flaming than productive discourse. So while The Language Controversy is an important issue, I've been taking the coward's path for the past few days, "you can't blog about that on change, anything but that, just, just anything!" (Figuring someday when there's less polarity in the autism community, when it's "safe," I can pull the topic out, perhaps in retrospect...)

However, I have the sticky brain, and unfortunately The Language Controversy is the only thing that is in my head to write about *sigh*.

The intention of "person first language" (i.e. "person with a disability") may well be a civil rights demand to view a person as a whole person and not just their disability. The problem of connecting up everything a person does with their autism and failing to see a whole human being is indeed something that I've written about a lot here, like letting people's talents be their talents and not placing undue weight on the role of autism in greatness. We are indeed much more than just a bundle of deficits or superpowers as defined by our medical label.

But critics of person first language are unconvinced that person first language actually accomplishes that intent. Indeed some of us consider person first language to be DEhumanizing. Jim Sinclair wrote a seminal essay on the topic; the essay is from the perspective of the Autistic community, but the sentiment is shared by the Deaf community and many others in the Disability community. Not only does person first language deny a person the ability to acknowledge the role their sensory/neurological/movement/psychological/etc. differences play in their identity (of equal importance to sex, gender, race, ethnicity, culture, etc.), but it medicalizes the disability. Part of the today's civil rights movement is working away from medical models and into social or socio-ecological models of disability. Integration and acceptance of disability as part of identity may also be important for psychological well being.

Regardless of which "camp" a person falls into however, the core issue with language is pretty much always cited as RESPECT. In other words, person first language proponents say separating a person from their disability is more respectful. Identity first language proponents say acknowledging disability as an aspect of identity is more respectful.

The deep irony for me is when I ask someone outside of my community to please respect my own preference and I am instead given a lecture about how disrespectful I am being. To me, what respect actually is about has nothing to do with some global rule that can be dogmatically applied to an entire group of people, but everything to do with listening to and respecting the wishes of a specific individual or a specific community.

Language is fluid and civil rights movements can change. Respect isn't about dogma, it's about understanding and acknowledging a person or community's perspective. The hard part (I find as I struggle with it in my proposal) is figuring out how to respect both your own wishes and the wishes of someone with a different perspective. And knowing when to make that sort of compromise and when to dig in the heels and put up a fight.